Kolawole Adesike Oladoyin

KolawoleAdesike Oladoyin was born in the early 80's at Kaduna Statealthough her origin was in Oyo Stateboth in Nigeria. She grew up in the family of ten as the fourth and the first female child. Plant cultivation was practiced in her neighborhood and her parents used to have plots of land close by on which maize and vegetables were grown especially in the rainy season.
As a child she was always excited to help the farm labourers in the post-planting and post-harvest farm operations. As a teenagershe had a passion to become a pharmacistbut as fate would have ither first degree was eventually in Agronomy at Ladoke Akintiola University of TechnologyOgbomosoOyo stateNigeria and thereafter retained as a Graduate Assistant due to her excellent academic performance.&nbsp; She later proceeded to the University of Ibadan in Nigeria for a Masters' degree in plant breeding. Not quite long after resumptionshe came across her mentor and supervisor Prof. Victor Olawale Adetimirin who taught her plant breeding core courses and also supervised her masters' project titled: Inheritance of number of days to flowering in Maize (Zea mays L.) of West and Central Africa Adaptation. Due to the exposure gained on the fieldwhere hybridization was done to generate more planting materials and to advance breeding linesmaterials to the next generationher curiosity in crop improvement increasedyearning for more.&nbsp; The platform created by AGRA Sponsored WACCI PhD Programme was her dream come truebecause it will provide the utmost exposure and training needed to be a relevant plant breeder of her generationshe will also be equipped with knowledge useful to teach her students the art and science of crop improvement which is a necessary tool for poverty alleviation in Nigeria and Africa at large. For her doctorate studiesshe will be working on the effects of reciprocal recurrent selection as a method of interpopulation improvement in maizeresulting in the production of inbred lines which will be used to develop improved maize varieties that are able to increase maize yield and yield stabilitytherefore contributing to food security in her motherland.